Sunday, August 23, 2015

How "Polishing the Mirror" Helps You Reflect the Miraculous

Although I'm an avowedly non-violent kind of guy, it's not beyond me to ruthlessly torture a metaphor along with the best (or worst) of 'em, and seeing as this is a session that requires lots of spiritual elbow grease–nearly everyday–you have my permission to cover your eyes. You won't need them to look into this mirror.

"Our life is shaped by our mind, for we become what we think."

Buddha, The Dhammapada 1:1

In Zen Buddhism, where meditation is called sitting zazen, they use this marvelous house-cleaning metaphor of "polishing the mirror" when they talk about how to think about not-thinking. It's like this: If the way we think is just an incomplete reflection of a greater, more blissful consciousness (based solely on how well-connected we are to it), then the best way to perceive more of that blissful Source is to do some housecleaning, so to speak – starting with the "inner mirror" that serves as our doorway into the unimaginable potential of Life.

That mirror stands for the surface of something unfathomably deep, that we can only reach into through the center of our imaginations. In the reflection that we are, we see ourself only on its surface. We wish to feel ourselves more a part of it, to become more a part of it, and sometimes we can momentarily reach down into it, but we, ourselves, are what's reflecting that profound reality so poorly. All of the fogginess and flaws are a result of own conscious, and subconscious designs. The obscurities are of our own making.

So, it stands to reason, that if we can improve the quality of the reflector, we'll improve the reflection.

To start that process, we need to sit in stillness and roll up our 'inner sleeves' to ready ourselves for housecleaning. Everything goes better when it's picked up a bit – straightened, inventoried, and organized. Most–if not all–of the mess on the surface of the mirror are simply our thoughts. Thoughts about who we are, about what we don't have, or what we think we should have – what we think we need to be happy, and to feel whole. We need to stand back a bit, and clean up our streaky, smudgy thoughts.

"The deluded, imagining trivial things to be vital to life, follow their vain fantasies and never attain [bliss]; but the wise, knowing what is trivial and what is vital, set their thoughts on the goal, and attain [bliss]."

Buddha, The Dhammapada, 1:11, 12

In a recent article ("Sitting in the Wilderness," at The Mindful Word.org) I tried to simplify the three "temptations," met and overcome, by both Jesus and The Buddha as they sat and faced their 'devils' – temptations that can stand in quite nicely for the substance that clouds our internal mirrors – the content of most of those surface-obscuring thoughts. Simply, they are:

1) The deep wish to control things to be just the way we want them to be.

2) The superficial, or material, or physical desires we desire to have gratified, and

3) Our fears – usually having to do with numbers one and two.

Our fears are the basic filmy schmutz (that's Yiddish) that "as through a glass darkly" obscure the perceptions of our brightest potential – and they should be the easiest to simply wipe away, seeing as how most of our fears aren't even real. The shadows they cast over the way things appear to us are largely the product of our own negative imaginations. Most of what we fear comes and goes with little or no real consequence, and even when it does impact on our life, it is still just life – doing what it will do. Usually, we learn our greatest lessons that way.

Polishing that inner mirror puts us directly, 'palm-to-palm' in touch with the surface of a magical ocean of underlying support and serenity. There's a quality of contact with the depth of all that potential that allows us to see through the fears to the calm sanity and intelligence that stands behind them, and beneath everything. You gain a purpose that lets you patiently wipe away the default negative thoughts that obscure your underlying potential – feelings that you don't measure up, or resentments against others (who are simply doing their best to reflect consciousness too). A crumpled-up newspaper, and ammonia works well.

And then, as long as you're making things up, make up something wonderful; visualize the miraculous for yourself and others. That ought to lighten up your life quite a bit, and allow you to reflect the sanity that lies at your true Source.

There, in the clarity of that improved reflection, we realize the funhouse mirror distortions our ego causes us to see – the illusion that we're much taller or broader, that our head is so much bigger than everyone elses (when really, we're all just about the same size). It's not the mirror that causes the distortions, it's our pride, our ego. Smooth that surface out flat with a calm, deliberate, repetitive circular motion, until the reflection invites you in – beyond your ego illusions. Feel the freedom of becoming that truth that lives beneath your projections.

"To identify consciousness with that which merely reflects consciousness, this is egoism."

Patanjali,The Yoga Sutras, II.3

There will always be little surface smudges, and underlying distortions, but the more you experience the sense of transcendent being – that expansion of consciousness into our deeper dimension of being that occurs when we lose "our self" in the act of polishing, the greater ease you'll experience in every other moment too, and the better you'll feel about how well you can reflect your true potential.

With the mirror cleaner, you need never obsess on the flaws again, because you'll see, clearly at last, that your reflection is something of unimaginably great beauty. You are a perfect expression of the greatest, deepest, and most beautiful mystery of all…a perfect expression of Life's Consciousness that all of this world can only merely reflect.

Sit, and if you "polish the mirror" patiently, soon you'll be able to step right into it, and into a whole new world, where all you need is to simply be who, and what you really are – a beautiful reflection of the miraculous.

The first book–

I survived three very different near death experiences, and I don't recommend it, but I'd like to give you what I've learned about life (and death) the easy way, in my fun (but serious) book, designed to defuse whatever fears you have, and pass along the lessons I learned the hard way, available now at all major book sellers, from Conari Press

Faith - articles and observations of a spiritual and experiential nature.

The Koko Lion - a character of personal or anonymous memoir–stories from The School of Hard and Soft Knocks, and Tales of unavoidable transformation.

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Don't Be Put-off By This (Spiritual), It's Really Fun to Read Reading List

A Course in Miracles

A Joseph Campbell Companion (ed.)

A Practical Guide to Know Yourself -Maharshi

A Return to Love -Williamson

Bases of Yoga -Aurobindo

Being, Consciousness, Bliss -Fitzgerald

Black Elk Speaks

Christ the Yogi -Ravindra

Crest-Jewel of Discrimination -Shankara/Prabhavananda, Isherwood

Ethics of the Sages Pirke Avot -Shapiro

Finding the Hidden Self: The Shiva Sutras -Worthington

Food For the Gods -Berry (ed.)

Gnana Yoga -Vivekananda

Gnosticism -Hoeller

Good Life, Good Death -Gehlek

How to Know God: The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali -Isherwood/Prabhavananda

I Am That -Maharaj

Infinite Life – Thurman

Jesus and Yahweh – Bloom

Jung and the Lost Gospels – Hoeller

Misquoting Jesus -Ehrman

Not Always So -Suzuki

Parallel Worlds -Kaku

Power Vs. Force -Hawkins

Quantum Shift in the Global Brain -Laszlo

Real Magic -Dyer

Rebirth and Karma – Aurobindo

Science and the Akashic Field -Laszlo

Suicide and the Soul – Hillman

Teachings of The Buddha -Kornfield (ed.)

The Bhagavad Gita -Easwaran

The Bhagavad Gita – Gandhi

The Book of Secrets -Chopra

The Captain's Verses -Neruda

The Dhammapada -Easwaran

The Divine Matrix -Braden

The Enlightened Mind -Mitchell (ed.)

The Essenes -Manitara

The Essential Mystics -Harvey (ed.)

The Essential Rumi – Barks

The Field -McTaggart

The Future Evolution of Man -Aurobindo

The Game of Life -Shinn

The Gnostic Jung and the Seven Sermons to the Dead – Hoeller

The Gospel of Thomas -Leloup

The Great Path of Awakening – Kongtrul

The Hermetica -Freke/Gandy

The Hope -Harvey

The Medium, The Mystic, and the Physicist -LeShan

The Original Jesus, Buddhist Christianity -Gruber, Kersten

The Passover Plot -Schonfield

The Power of Myth -Campbell

The Power of Now -Tolle

The Sacred Power of Huna -Morrell

The Secret Teachings of All Ages -Hall

The Soul of Rumi -Barks (trans/ed.)

The Spiritual Roots of Yoga -Ravindra

The Spirituality of Imperfection -Kurtz/Ketcham

The Tao of Physics -Capra

The Tao te Ching -Lao Tzu/Star, Mitchell, Rosenthal

The Three Pillars of Zen -Kapleau

The Undiscovered Self -Jung

The Upanishads -Mascaro (ed.)

The Way to God -Gandhi

Upanishads -Easwaran

When Things Fall Apart -Chodron

Your Sacred Self -Dyer

Zen Mind, Beginner Mind -Suzuki

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